Jamison had a friendlier relationship with Robin Baggett, team counsel and chief negotiator for the basketball team, which needed a temporary home next season while its arena in Oakland was being reconstructed. As announced Friday, that home - surprisingly - will be the San Jose Arena, not the Cow Palace in Daly City.

Savage had led San Jose's negotiation to lure the Warriors permanently away from Oakland, and when that negotiation fell through last November, Savage accused the Warriors of using San Jose for leverage to push their Oakland deal.

But Jamison, then the San Jose Arena's executive vice president, remained friendly with Baggett, and when Baggett called Jamison to congratulate him on his promotion, he mentioned having problems securing acceptable dates at the Cow Palace and asked Jamison if he wanted "to chat." Jamison seized the moment, and an agreement was reached Thursday night.

"and of course Art kind of went after us a little bit when our deal didn't work out, and Art and I haven't really talked since. . . . I don't think Art would have called."

Terms not announced

No terms of the deal were disclosed, but it includes two exhibition games, the Warriors' entire 1996-97 home schedule of 41 games and any playoff games. Baggett said there was also a contingency deal that would allow the Warriors to open the following season in San Jose if there were a construction delay in Oakland.

Baggett said there was no chance the Warriors' stay in San Jose would be permanent, although Jamison had raised the subject. "Our (Oakland) deal is done," Baggett said.

The Sharks, as the San Jose Arena's primary tenant, have first choice of dates, with the Warriors taking the best of the leftovers. The situation at the Cow Palace was the same, Baggett said, with the San Francisco Spiders of the International Hockey League as the principal tenant.

The difference, Baggett said, was that the Cow Palace offered only two Saturdays all season. "We'd have been playing on NFL Sundays and NFL Monday nights," he said.

"That's what a bunch of the dates were. It was ugly.

"If the Sharks said to us, "These are our dates, you can't have any of them, we're not going to work with you, we're going to be using them all,' well, we would have a problem with the Sharks," Baggett said. "The Sharks' approach is, "Look, we're not going to need all these dates. We have to submit them. We'll work with the NHL, we'll get our schedule, and then we'll release probably another 20 weekend dates for you.'

"Not only do we have a good schedule now, but we know it's going to get better."

Half again as many seats

Besides, Baggett observed, the San Jose building will seat "between 18,000 and 18,500" for basketball, while the Cow Palace would have seated "between 12,000 and 12,500."

The Warriors' current home schedule includes 17 weekend dates: six Fridays, eight Saturdays and three Sundays. As mentioned, Baggett anticipates more next season. He wouldn't give the breakdown, but he said that Sunday games might start at 6 p.m. and that there might be some shared weekend dates with the Sharks, one playing in the afternoon, the other at night.

The Warriors will handle ticket sales except for the Sharks' suite-holders, who will have the first option to retain those suites for Warriors games.

Baggett said Warriors season-ticket holders probably would be required to renew for the season in San Jose in order to retain their hold on seats. "We're going to have a joint marketing plan with Oakland on this," he said.

"We plan to have that concluded in June. And this will be a part of it."

Burden to North Bay fans

Baggett said he was concerned about getting weekend dates in order to minimize the inconvenience for many of the Warriors' current patrons of getting to a different place, either the Cow Palace or San Jose. He acknowledged it would be especially acute for fans in Marin and Napa counties.

"Research has indicated it's not that bad for the others," he said. "It's not bad for the Oakland area, especially the ones out in Alamo, that area - it's the same distance as to the Cow Palace. And San Francisco people are always driving across the Bay Bridge, anyway."

Cow Palace general manager Mike Wegher said he had still been negotiating with the Warriors as of last Monday,

"and gave them a schedule that (they could submit) to the NBA. Whether it was sufficient or they needed more (weekend dates) . . . whenever we asked them how many more, they never would give us a definitive number. So it's speculation at this point."

Wegher acknowledged the Cow Palace had offered only two Saturdays, although 11 Fridays were made available. "We had previous commitments on a lot of the dates, and we had big shows with long blocks," he said. "That made it more difficult." &lt;

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